Month: June 2018

Loveland resident Sariah Hooper, center, and her friend Jordan Lawson, right, talk with sales representative Emilio Alejos-Sparks while looking through the inventory of new cars on Friday, June 29, 2018, at Pedersen Toyota on South College Avenue in Fort Collins, Colo. (Photo: Timothy Hurst/The Coloradoan)

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The X4 xDrive30i should be arriving at dealers soon for $51,445, with the M40i following in late summer at $61,445. X4 xDrive30i buyers may choose from the standard xLine appearance package or the optional M Sport package. The xLine has front and rear skid plates, side skirts, and accents in satin aluminum, all of which supposedly accentuate the off-road-adventure aspect of crossover ownership. The M Sport has its own bumpers and skirts with gloss-black accents to emphasize performance, and it is close in appearance to the M40i’s model-specific bumpers and trim pieces. (Europe gets an M Sport X trim that plays both ends of that scale, with Frozen Grey accents intended to evoke rally racing.) That’s just the opening gambit on the personalization options that you can expect will swell the bottom line on most X4s. Having the factory right here in America makes ordering a car just the way you like it a little more practicable than is the case for imported models, and the company has now made it possible to order X4s with options from its BMW Individual portfolio. Because when you’re competing with the Porsche Macan, no options list can be too long.

Unlike in those bigger Mercs, there’s no old-style rotary input wheel with which to navigate the infotainment system. Instead, there’s an improved fingertip entry pad on the centre console (which works much better than Merc’s older touch-sensitive input system, it must be noted). Or you can use the car’s voice recognition system (a new set-up called ‘Hey Mercedes’, which seems to work well) and the duo of thumb touchpads on the steering wheel in combination to master the car’s various secondary systems. You can even get an ‘augmented reality’ extension for the navigation system that superimposes turn arrows on a projected camera view of the road ahead, as if you were playing some real-life game of Mario Kart on the Crooked Billet interchange. If that sounds a touch distracting, trust me, it is exactly that.

Be aware that many petrol stations in Europe are fully automated much of the time, especially after normal office hours. They tend to pre-authorise your card with a larger sum – typically €147 and then refund the balance if you put in less fuel. In the past, many refused UK bank cards but this appears to be less of a problem now. Also, be aware you might come across diesel fuel containing 8% biodiesel. This fuel – named B8 – is not suitable for use in all cars, so stick to the standard stuff if unsure.

To customize the 60 year old integrated perfection of a BMW motorcycle without turning it into a collection of odd parts requires true technical insight. Elemental Custom Cycles succeeded with Project 4, the codename for the bike featured here. This 1985 R80 Monolever is from the last batch of traditional airheads made. Cutting up airheads is dangerous to your BMW club membership card. Doing so is not the “plug the welder in next to the beer cooler” school of bike building. Let’s talk cost for a moment, while I don’t have the figures for this build, a similar project years I was involved in years ago that had us changing BMW’s design integration pushed build costs to five figures very quickly. One simple change, say swapping handlebars, means everything remotely related must be tweaked. As I study the solutions that ECC found to the same problems I dealt with, serious money spent is obvious.

Kei trucks serve as the real workhorses of urban Japan , but that doesn’t mean that every one is a quotidian beer-keg hauler or roasted-sweet-potato seller . Far from it— you’ll find some nicely customized keis on the streets of Tokyo , and kei manufacturers have built some interesting high-performance variants over the years. Here’s a pair of factory-turbocharged Daihatsu Move kei vans that I spotted while on my way to the Mach 7 dekotora-supply shop in a Tokyo suburb last month.

The stereotype of the slick, shady car salesman ready to part a fool with his money in exchange for a lemon has become ubiquitous over the years. Now, it’s turned into a full-blown meme. The “slaps roof of car” meme takes an imaginary conversation between a car salesman and potential buyer, in which the salesman ostensibly gives the roof of a car a good slap and says: “this bad boy can fit so much X in it.”

There are a bunch of different types of car games. Some are simulations, others are racing games, and others still are puzzle games. The topic grew rather quickly on mobile. Racing games especially have some of the best graphics of any mobile game. There are a bunch of car games out there. Some of them are pretty good. A few are great. Let’s take a look at the best car games for Android.

If you look at the distribution of model year prices for Porsche’s 911 you’ll likely find that it’s a pretty flat curve lying way up out of the average person’s reach, with a notable dip around the 996 edition. In comparison, prices for Chevy’s 911 competitor, the Corvette, follow a fairly standard inverted bell, or well curve. The oldest models command substantial prices. Those in the middle seem to be more prevalent and manage lower demand so their prices are commensurately weak. Newish cars again get decent bank, owing to their limited usage and contemporary capabilities.